🚀 go-pugleaf

Great news ).


"ComeInPeace" <Jimmy_Ray@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:5b699bbc.0312292126.3536cf30@posting.google.com...
> David Matin, San Antonio Current
>
http://www.sacurrent.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=10705756&BRD=2318&PAG=461&dept_id=482778&rfi=6
>
> On December 13, when U.S. forces captured Saddam Hussein, President
> George W. Bush not only celebrated with his national security team,
> but also pulled out his pen and signed into law a bill that grants the
> FBI sweeping new powers. A White House spokesperson explained the
> curious timing of the signing - on a Saturday - as "the President
> signs bills seven days a week." But the last time Bush signed a bill
> into law on a Saturday happened more than a year ago - on a spending
> bill that the President needed to sign, to prevent shuttng down the
> federal government the following Monday.
>
> By signing the bill on the day of Hussein's capture, Bush effectively
> consigned a dramatic expansion of the USA Patriot Act to a mere
> footnote. Consequently, while most Americans watched as Hussein was
> probed for head lice, few were aware that the FBI had just obtained
> the power to probe their financial records, even if the feds don't
> suspect their involvement in crime or terrorism.
>
> By signing the bill on the day of Hussein's capture, Bush effectively
> consigned a dramatic expansion of the USA Patriot Act to a mere
> footnote.
>
> The Bush Administration and its Congressional allies tucked away these
> new executive powers in the Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal
> Year 2004, a legislative behemoth that funds all the intelligence
> activities of the federal government. The Act included a simple, yet
> insidious, redefinition of "financial institution," which previously
> referred to banks, but now includes stockbrokers, car dealerships,
> casinos, credit card companies, insurance agencies, jewelers,
> airlines, the U.S. Post Office, and any other business "whose cash
> transactions have a high degree of usefulness in criminal, tax, or
> regulatory matters"